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David Storobin’s Love Letter To Putin

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DAVID STOROBIN:  “Rather than the joke it was in the late 1990s, Putin’s Russia of 2008 is a country that matters. It matters in terms of global economy, oil and gas, United Nations, War on Terror and just about every other international issue.

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The Minimum Wage

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In recent weeks Sheldon Silver has taken time out from advancing the interests of older generations and politically connected interests (at the expense of the common future and the less well off), and proposed an increase in the minimum wage for New York State to a higher level than the federal minimum wage. Mayor Bloomberg has concurred. In response, the predictable battle has emerged between those who claim that a higher minimum wage would wipe out jobs that businesses could not afford to fund at those levels, and those who claim that the higher wages would lead to more consumer spending and thus create jobs. In reality, however, both sides are right, about different places. As I’ve noted previously, a higher than the U.S. mandated minimum wage makes perfect sense in Manhattan, where Silver and fellow supporter Mike Bloomberg are from, and no sense in Upstate New York. The higher minimum should not be imposed on Upstate; neither should Downstate be precluded from a higher minimum because of Upstate objections.

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JUMPING INTO NEW YORK’S REAPPORTIONMENT (REDISTRICTING) DEBATE.

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Every new decade, we are forced by various constitutions (federal and state), various court decisions, legal frameworks, local charters, and other socio-economic-cultural-political precedents, to do a census count. This is essentially a precursor to reapportioning lines for legislative (and election/EDs) districts: on all levels of government (federal/state/local). You can say that it’s a tradition now. 

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